Posts by kaik

5

What about a reverse JW time capsule??

by DATA-DOG in

let me explain.

since all dubs believe that the end is soon, they just won't listen.

today's wt study was a friggin joke.

kaik

No, Rutherford and WT published that Time of End stated 215 years ago. Yeah, in 1799. This is from The Harp of God [1921]:

"The time of the end" embraces
a period from 1799 A. D., as above indicated,
to the time of tho complete overthrow of Satan's empire
and the establishment of the kingdom of the
Messiah. The time of the Lord's second presence
dates from 1874, as above stated. The latter period
is within the first named, of course, and in the latter
part of thc period known as "the time of the end".

So the end times started in year, when G. Washington, Jefferson and Adams were alive; before Napoleon became an Emperor, Queen Victoria was not yet born. The Harp of God got this date calculated from this:

Twelve hundred sixty years from
539 A. D. brings us to 1799, another proof that 1799
definitely marks the beginning of "the time of the
and". This also shows that it is from the date 539
A.. D. that the other prophetic days of Daniel must be
counted.

If we were able to look into the future, we will see that the 1914 will be abandoned as was this 1799 nonsense. WT can go in theory indifinitely with any date they randomly pick and choose to fit twisted understanding of the Scriptures.

22

why is the org acting worried?

by Crazyguy in

the latest statistics from the year book seems to indicated that no great increase of leavers, so why is the org seem to be acting like thier worried?

more talks about apostates, more asking for money, more talks about loyalty, etc.

what's up?.

kaik

The biggest issue is dwindling money donation. In wealthy countries like USA, UK, Germany, Japan, the membership is stagnant. The biggest growths are in countries that are very poor and where the donations are fraction of USA. With a development of the mobile apps, people are less interested in reading; and everything is moving to cloud, mobile apps, and electronic publishing. Even developing countries have rather well developed mobile and wireless communication. This affects how the literature is distributed and accepted by potential converts. The business model of the 1900-1950 is clearly broken. For example economic crisis in Europe barely increased the number of JWs even in economically depressed Greece, and decreased in Hungary, Czech Republic, or Slovakia. Wealthier East Asia have highly secular, and religiously indifferent population with well educated class. The JW have hard time to influence societies which have high emphasis on education as they have for decades dispise higher learning.

As long WT sticks to 1914 teaching, which became liability, the organization will have hard time to expand in this world. They will eventually phase out and modify to create a new sense of urgency, but this takes years to develop. For now we can just watch stagnant membership and organization in crisis.

57

The Watchtower religion(JWS), that really couldn't fail, from beginning to ........

by Finkelstein in

when one looks back retrospectively at the very beginning of this organization, you could see that the wts.. was on a structural platform of success, created by cunningly created doctrines, such as the invisible return of.

christ, the end times and the imminently soon to come armageddon, all bundled together.. .. this religious organization like so many others established in the united states was unregulated and had.

no upper governing control over its daily operations.. they proclaimed and taught what they wanted to or needed to sustain their operations as a publishing house.. .

kaik

TheDog, I belive that there elders and JWs who are honest and believe that they serve God and carry Jesus message of love. I met these in KH as well. They belive to be a part of the God chosen organization that has the best intention for the mankind. However, as elder, you cannot deny that the primary goal of JW is constant proselyting and soul fishing, while disregarding basic social, cultural, individual needs, christian philanthropy, and social support for the members. Where in the world is one hospice, hospital, nursing home, charitable organization that serves aged JW after they spent decades on preaching man made philosophy??? Where? Nowhere! For the JW, the success is measured by the number of hours preached, on number of studies performed, and how many brochures were distributed. Love to God cannot be measured by hours spent going door to door.

If anyone has any conscience, it should be clear in couple years in JW that this organization does not serve God, nor carry Christian message, or provide service for Jesus. Flip-flopping doctrines on such basic beliefs like Great Crowd, annotaited, Generation of 1914, civil service for men, shows that GB is not God's communication channel. And top putting JW associated themselves as group that was prophecies by Scripture. How can be 7 thrumpets from Revelation (and many other nonsense) to be associated to some unimportant conventions in Ohio 85 years ago as confirmation of it???? Please! Anyone who has functioning brain and IQ over 80 would see through this nonsense. JW does not serve God, but group of well fed, obese leadership that never experienced hardship, labor and are nothing more than directors-CEO of man made organization.

57

The Watchtower religion(JWS), that really couldn't fail, from beginning to ........

by Finkelstein in

when one looks back retrospectively at the very beginning of this organization, you could see that the wts.. was on a structural platform of success, created by cunningly created doctrines, such as the invisible return of.

christ, the end times and the imminently soon to come armageddon, all bundled together.. .. this religious organization like so many others established in the united states was unregulated and had.

no upper governing control over its daily operations.. they proclaimed and taught what they wanted to or needed to sustain their operations as a publishing house.. .

kaik

Suckers are born in every minute. Publishing organization only cares about distribution of their brochures on pretense of religion. Finkelstein, you nailed it to the point. Unfortunatelly, people are too naive and will never understand this business model and will continue to drink the kool aid. They think they are part of God choosen organization, where publications have more value than Scriptures.

At least in the industrialized countries, this 19th century business model is becoming obsolete and hit a plateua to entice wider public. Their publishing hope is right now only the poorest countries in the world with exploding young population, where they get the most growth. Societies with high internent penetration are doom for WT.

Thedog1, the power over local congregation is what drive men to join publishing company. WT does not have whatsoever any social engagement, no hospice care, social services, welfare nest, Sunday schools for children. These things cost money and take away time that is needed in distributing poorly or horribly written books and brochures like the Revelation. And you certainly as any elder control your flock.

52

Who is easier to indoctrinate, men or women?

by kneehighmiah in

jw
friends

from purely anecdotal evidence, i believe women are more indoctrinated on average.

i can openly disagree with the governing body with men and it results in a discussion however, most women i've talked to have immediately shut me down by ending the conversation.

the only person currently shunning me is a woman.

kaik

From my observation, university study of religion, and reading; women are more religious. The faith is more integrated in their life, family, and personal identity. It does not matter what religion. If you travel throughout catholic countries, you will see mostly women participating in rituals. I was last year in Central Europe to visit medieval abbey, and there were a few males, but women were banging their heads in front of altars in religious extacy. The same behavior I had seen in Poland in pilgramage sites, and they were constantly yelling on others not following the rituals. In extreme Mormon groups like that one in YFZ Ranch , women were the most devouted. They do not mind having their 14 year old daughters to be young bride for old codger, while their sons were kicked out of the community. Various christian denominations are like that. Nonetheless, religious fanatism is usually male thing and men behave like the great inquisitor.

From study of religion at my university, we were taught that one reason behind the success of Christianity in the 1st century were women. Jesus talked to women, they were the center piece of the proselysation efford. He revealed him self first to the women. Women became the cornerstone of the early christianity as they brought their children into the new faith. If Jesus and Apostles ignored women, the christianity would not be that successul throughout the Roman Empire.

7

The Generation of 2014

by free2beme in

jw
friends

"surely i tell you today, the generation at saw the events of 2014 will surely not pass away before the end comes.".

damn it!

someone hit the reset button, i feel we have all been here befor a hundred years ago.

kaik

Last person who lived in the 19th century died last summer. Either way, there are only 250,000-300,000 people around the world that were born on or before 1914.

WT will not change 1914 until all people born before 1920 will die, which will happen around 2034. You can still play 1914+120 for next 20 years !!!

3

Europe in 1914 ...

by fulltimestudent in

try this bbc site:.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww1.

and as an aside, while studying a unit called japan in asia from 1840, i had cause to read a lot of commentary on the 1904/05 war between japan and imperial russia.

kaik

It is also crucial to understand that the war in Europe was already happening with the start of the I. Balkan War. The between Serbia, Bulgaria, and others in the Balkans and Ottoman Empire on the other hand eventually spilled over into Euroepan powerhouse as was Austria-Hungary. Austria was planning for war with Serbia since 1907 as there were tensions between these two since the coup in Belgrade of 1903.

12

Tower of Babel and the Bible's language

by jws in

so *if* god wrote the bible (or directed people on what to write), he must have wanted people to read it and follow it.. so why did he confuse the languages at the tower of babel and then have his ot books written in only one of the languages?.

if people couldn't read it, they couldn't follow it.

if they had nothing else to follow, the people inclined to believe in higher powers would have to try to figure that out for themselves and end up with various beliefs.. so god is to blame for any false religion and worship of false gods.

kaik

I remember from study in KH that the original language was Hebrew. They tought as that Adam and Eve spoke Hebrew and all other languages were result of the Tower of Babel curse.

8

Legitimate Children

by new hope and happiness in

i have my own personal viewpoint on why its often so futile to reason with a jehovers witness.. i think many witnesses, feel like legitimate children to the organisation.

( i have often heard the org being referrd to as mother).

and this parental sence of belonging is so strong that new membets become " stepchildren".

kaik

My experience was that there was two tier class. First class made of interconnected families who were in the "truth" for two three generations. They controlled everything, their opinion mattered the most and could get away with a lot of things. They felt that that they could pass on any young cute sister, and many female looked upon them as a choosen nobility. Than there was a second class of people who were convert, and did not had family relationship. They were outsiders, they were not invated into social events, they did not participate on studies, and they were seldom asked to answer a question. Any divergence from the mainstream was not tolerated, and if you crossed the I. tier, you got DFs.

35

2013 Publisher Statistics now available from 2014 Yearbook.

by jwfacts in

the 2014 yearbook is out, and i have scanned the publisher figures into a more readable format at 2013 service year report.

i have updated some of the graphs at http://www.jwfacts.com/watchtower/statistics.php and will do the rest tonight.

there are no real surprises, with very similar results as during the last couple of years.

kaik

To Hortenzie, the JW experienced a golden age in Eastern Europe in the 1990's as they came out from illegality, and new opportunities arose. Back then, it was no problem to bring 100,000 people into the convention like I was in Praha - Strahov. Today you will get couple thousand people. There is more ex-JW in Czech Republic than JW. They been in decline almost for 20 years, and similar trend happened in Hungary. Both countries had peak in 1996. Both countries also had very huge group of young people born during the communist child boom of the 1970's. This was the biggest baby boom Eastern Block experienced since 1945. This baby boom had translated well into the increase in the early 1990's. Since then, the population experienced stagnant population growth and age. This reflect well on lack of ability to incite people into the religion. Back in the 1988-1992 people were extremely intested about this American based, modern religion. Today, the population does not care anymore.